Biodiversity research and education at the Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore

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With over 300 graduate students and over 150 post-doctoral fellows and research staff, the Department of Biological Sciences has the largest graduate community in the Faculty of Science. However, a formal representation mechanism within the department is missing.

The department leadership is receptive to the development of a DBS Graduate Representation Committee (as does exist in some other departments) and Jacob Phelps is working to initiate this. Jacob is a PhD student with the Applied Plant Ecology lab and was recently appointed the DBS Graduate Representative to the Faculty of Science.
Self-nominations for representatives to the new DBS Graduate Representation Committee are invited from DBS graduate students. The submission deadline is Thursday, 12th August 2010. Please submit your nomination here: http://tinyurl.com/dbsgradcomm2010.

Nominations should include a concise public statement of less than 300 words which will be displayed on the DBS website. Graduate students will be able to view this to help make a voting decision during an online election planned for mid-August.

The demand on the Committee will be sustainable – likely involve two meetings per semester and with Department leadership as needed. The first representatives will shape the course of new body and the initial objectives include:

Represent and be elected by the DBS graduate students and post-doctoral fellows;

Have clear bylaws and be formally recognised by the Department, Faculty and GSS;

Collect student feedback on a range of graduate welfare issues from each of the seven communities;

Focus on bridging the gap between students/post-docs and the Department through dialogue sessions and representation at relevant meetings, and by making recommendations based on the collective student experience;

Help support Ms. Reena and Ms. Priscilla to address basic student welfare issues by ensuring that students are fairly represented in the Department and have access to relevant university services (career, health, counseling), and by ensuring that these services are addressing graduate student needs;

Include Ms. Reena as a staff representative and Prof. Henry Mok as a faculty representative;

Explore whether it would like to organise any events within the Department.